1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to a zone control, and more particularly to a zone control system and a method of automatically controlling the same.
2. Description of Related Art
In recent years, many new buildings have been designed and developed toward the rising intelligent buildings.
In the existing intelligent buildings, many sensors and apparatus controllers are installed or configured in the building to sense various environmental parameters, thereby adjusting environmental amenity by controlling electrical devices installed in the building according to the environmental parameters.
In the conventional practices, the interior of the building is usually divided into a plurality of zones, and at least one sensor, at least one apparatus controller, and an exclusive smart controller are installed inside each of the zones, respectively. In particular, the smart controller is used to receive information of the all apparatus controllers and the sensors, and transmit information to and receive information from the smart controllers in other zones.
In general, each of the smart controllers, the apparatus controllers, and the sensors has its own identification code, such as a device number or a media access control (MAC) address. The installation personnel usually build a mapping table for configuring the LAN structure in the zones before physically installing the smart controllers, the apparatus controllers, and the sensors in the building.
For example, the contents of the mapping table record: the first zone includes a smart controller with a number of A00001, an apparatus controller with a number of B00001, and a sensor with a number of C00001; the second zone includes a smart controller with a number of A00002, two apparatus controllers with numbers of B00002 and B00003, and three sensors with numbers of C00002, C00003, and C00004.
Configuring the LAN structure in the zones, the installation personnel can operate a computer to login the smart controller via a web server and control the smart controller to connect to the corresponding apparatus controllers and the sensors according to the mapping table, thereby accomplishing the configuration of the LAN structure.
However, the installation personnel have to spend a lot of statistics or calculation time building the mapping table. Also, the installation personnel must spend significant time manually configuring the LAN structure if the number of the zones in the building is much greater.